1 Introduction

Obedience refers to accepting somebody’s authority and enacting his/her commands. This is an important form of social influence and is pivotal in the process of socialization. It is a prime indicator of relatedness in collectivistic cultures. India being high in collectivism [9, 20] nurtures obedience through its religious doctrines, folklore and parenting practices.

1.1 The cultural notion of obedience

‘Cultivate the virtue of obedience, but you must not sacrifice your own faith. No centralization is possible unless there is obedience to superiors. No great work can be done without this centralization of individual forces.’

Excerpt from a letter written by Swami Vivekananda from USA2nd May, 1895 [36].

The presence of reverence towards authority/elderly has been the essence of Indian culture since ancient times. The society is hierarchical and strongly believes in power distance in institutions and family. This deep reverence towards the power, wisdom or authority of a superior one manifests itself in the value of obedience. Practising this value was very important to stabilize the highly differentiated society. Also, it is very important to preserve the continuity of the cultural ethos. To imbibe this value children/youngsters/subordinates have to believe in two basic things (i) the righteousness of the knowledge and wisdom elders/superiors have and (ii) the benevolence of their intentions. Belief in these two things encourages the children/subordinates/followers to yield themselves to the commands of authority. In return for this complete submission, the authority owns the responsibility of protecting their holistic interest in all ups and downs. In addition to that children benefit from the wisdom and experience of the elders. The most interesting fact about this value is that despite strongly advocating for compliance to authority, it neither curtails the ability to think rationally. Indian scholars asked thousands of questions about all possible things from nature to culture, from life to science. This endless questioning resulted in the eternal knowledge system of India. Asking questions was not confined to intellectual discussions only it was a part of daily life. Children, adolescents and students were encouraged to ask questions at home and in gurukulas, the ancient schools of India. This practice has been beautifully depicted by Sen [29] in his famous book ‘The Argumentative Indians.’ However, there is a delicate balance between query and compliance. The norm is to ask questions politely to address genuine queries. There is no place for arrogance while asking questions especially when the question is asked from an elder person or someone in an authority position. Thus, obedience has been a central value of Indian society transmitted from one to another generation over hundreds of years. Over time India was invaded and ruled by many foreign dynasties out of which Mughals and Britishers had a long history of ruling Indians. Both these races were very different religiously and culturally from the native people. Then, obedience in institutions and public platforms became a tool of the ruler to assert their hegemony over the ruled. Asserting complete political, economic, and cultural dominance over India was only possible by curbing the freedom to ask wise questions, which was one of the basic elements of the traditional notion of obedience in India. Unquestioned subservience to the ideologies and policies of the state was highly emphasized and the trend was imposed on the Indian education system as well. A knowledge system known to generate great intellectuals and scientists was soon transformed into one in which children were raised to listen not to question. It was a good ecosystem to produce executives and followers, not the leaders [10]. This new version of obedience perpetuated deep into the Indian culture and changed the way children were socialized in Indian families but for a different reason. When a massive forceful transformation was going on, people were trying to resist those changes. They were trying hard to preserve the core values and the salient traditions of Indian culture and transmit those successfully to the next generation to prevent cultural continuity. To do so parents demanded complete compliance from their children. The continuous fear of getting culturally uprooted made parents restrict the participation of their children/adolescent offspring in decision-making so that any wrong decision could not perish the cultural sanctity of their lineage. However, in the post-independence era, India experienced another strong acculturative current at the end of the twentieth century, when the currents of globalization reached India and spread quickly all over the country. As a result, Indian society started acculturating at a rapid rate towards the Western standards of living.

1.2 The effect of culture change

The effect of acculturation was visible in the lifestyle, education and value system of the country. This phenomenon of significant changes in the implicit and explicit components of Indian culture was termed as Westernization/modernization of Indian society. The modernization of any society is essentially accompanied by an inclination towards independence, autonomy, and achievement at the cost of traditional values [19, 31]. Although this postulate of modernization theory has shreds of evidence for the inculcation of individualistic values in acculturating societies, later studies show that it does not necessarily compromise the core collectivistic values. Trommsdorff [35] in her writings argues that if social change brings about changes in resources, belief systems, and behaviour, individuals can also operate in the process of social change. Besides this, people employ different strategies to handle the process of acculturation [2, 21, 23, 25]. They may sometimes integrate or assimilate with or remain separate from the changes. This point especially makes sense for Indian society which is known for its co-existence psyche [2, 21, 23, 25].

Behaviour is largely contextual and is primarily determined by the notion of place, time, and person. This was demonstrated by the studies of Mishra [22], and Tripathi and Sinha [33]. They found the coexistence of individualism and collectivism in Indian society. A recent study by Mishra and Sinha [24] compared the level of individualism and collectivism in three biological generations, grandmother, mother, and adolescents. They found that the level of individualism increases from grandmothers to adolescents but the level of collectivism does not decrease. Arnett [1] argues that Indian youth is developing a ‘bicultural identity’ deep-rooted in their indigenous culture and expanding its shoots in the global culture. This phenomenon is not confined to the Indian diaspora but all Asians who migrate to other individualistic cultures like the US or UK also exhibit a unique adjustment between the cultural notions/beliefs of their own culture and the notions/beliefs of the other culture to which they migrate [6, 8, 30, 37]. Sharma [32] found that adolescents differ significantly from older generations in self-direction, stimulation, and achievement but not in universalism, tradition, and benevolence. Collectivistic societies under the influence of globalization, move towards greater emphasis on autonomy but not necessarily compromise for relatedness [7, 27]. So, they develop an autonomous-related self [13,14,15], where the volitional agency dimension of autonomy increases but interpersonal distancing is not practised [18]. Similar findings were reported in several other acculturating societies of the world culminating in family change theory [11, 12, 14,15,16], suggesting three prototypes of families, independent, interdependent, and emotionally interdependent, the third being the product of the acculturation. Indian adolescents rate obedience as the most important value of their lives (e.g., [26, 34]. Chao and Tseng [5] also demonstrated a high level of acceptance towards parental control and authority in Asian cultures including India. However, due to the increased autonomy demands of the young generation, the expression and context of obedience may change.

Therefore, a qualitative study was planned to re-examine the status of obedience and autonomy in Indian adolescents with the following objectives.

Objective 1 is to examine how emerging adults conceptualize obedience and how important they find it as a value.

Objective 2 is to understand the reasons behind obeying the commands of parents/elders.

Objective 3 is to examine whether emerging adults are ready to observe obedience strictly or they are open to modifying the parental commands

Objective 4 is to identify the domains of life in which obedience is a rule vs. the context in which freedom of choice is claimed by emerging adults

2 Method

2.1 Sample

The study was conducted in Varanasi city. It is regarded as the ‘cultural capital’ of India and represents the oldest living civilization on the earth. Although the city continues to keep many traditions alive, the city dwellers have been experiencing several currents of social and cultural changes. 30 participants (18–19 years, 15 boys and 15 girls) were randomly selected from Banaras Hindu University. All of them were Hindu, living in two-parent families, and financially dependent on their parents.

2.2 Instrument

Anopen-ended questionnaire was developed in Hindi Besides the social-demographic profile, it consisted of 10 questions addressing four major issues. These were (1) the meaning of obedience, (2) reasons for complying with the commands of parents/elders, (3) the degree of flexibility in obedience, and (4) the context of obedience.

The English translation of the questions framed is as follows.

  1. 1.

    What do you understand by obedience?

  2. 2.

    Who should be obeyed?

  3. 3.

    In your opinion, how important it is to obey parents/elders?

  4. 4.

    Why it is important to obey parents/elders?

  5. 5.

    What are the benefits of obeying parents/elders?

  6. 6.

    Should the commands of parents/elders be obeyed always or they can be modified?

  7. 7.

    If you want to modify the needs of parents/elders, how do you make them understand it or you don’t feel a need to do so?

  8. 8.

    What are the conditions in which obedience is not necessary?

  9. 9.

    What are the issues in which you want to make your own decision instead of following parents’/elders’ commands?

  10. 10.

    What are the issues where parents’/elders’ command is legitimate?

Participants were asked to write their responses in about 250 words. Blank space was given with each question for writing.

2.3 Procedure

The research proposal was presented before the research committee of the college and ethical approval was sought. Thereafter selected participants were duly informed about the purpose of the study and written consent was taken from them. The researcher personally visited the participants for data collection. They were ensured of the confidentiality of the data. The open-ended questionnaire was given to them to answer. None of the participants showed any sign of confusion or hesitation while answering. After the data collection, they were thanked and allowed to leave. Thematic analysis of the responses was done. To do this the six-step process of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke [3] was followed. The process starts with the familiarization of the content. Both authors read the responses carefully and identified the relevant codes in them. Based on these codes variousthemes were extracted. The extraction of themes was based on the pre-decided framework. Four major themes emerged viz., the meaning and importance of obedience, the purpose of practicing obedience, flexibility in obedience, and the context of obedience. Then the data were searched for the appropriate codes supporting the themes. The two authors analysed the data separately and then discussed their findings. Depending upon the total number of agreements out of the total coding decisions the inter-coder reliability turned out to be 0.96.

3 Results

Four major themes emerged as a result of thematic analysis namely meaning and importance of obedience, The purpose of obedience, flexibility in obedience, and the context of obedience.

3.1 Theme 1: Meaning and importance of obedience

Responses to the first three questions revealed that obedience meant complying with the commands of elders. Specific codes found for this theme were ‘following elder’s command’, ‘obeying elder’s commands’, and ‘doing as elders say’. They all perceived obedience as very important in life and there was not a single deviation from this point. For them, it is a way to express reverence towards the authority (code- it is important to obey to show that we respect them). Though obedience is predominantly linked with age, participants (12 out of 30) clearly stated that a younger person must also be obeyed if he/she is superior to oneself (code-everybody follows the prescription of a doctor even if he/she is young because he/she knows better, everybody obeys the boss in the office, nobody bothers about the age). Besides superiority, the integrity of the person should be beyond doubt (code- anyone can be obeyed if he/she says something in good faith). If these conditions are fulfilled, obedience is a norm.

3.2 Theme 2: Purpose of obedience

Four distinct functions emerged from the responses, namely the knowledge function, the self-enhancement function, the harmonizing function, and the miscellaneous function. The following Table 1 lists the sample responses of the participants (in Hindi) and their English translations in each category.

  1. 1.

    The knowledge function: This emerged as the most important function of obedience. All participants agreed that parents and elders have experience of life, they are wise and by listening to them we can benefit from their knowledge and wisdom. It helps in one’s cognitive development and prevents making wrong decisions.

  2. 2.

    The self-enhancement function: This was the second important function obedience serves. Most of the participants (27 out of 30) reported that by obeying the commands of those superior to oneself, one acquires virtues. It makes a person humble and self-disciplined. This way obedience grooms the personality of an individual and ensures self-enhancement.

  3. 3.

    The harmonizing function: This is the third most frequent function reported by the participants. They view obedience as an instrument to stabilize the hierarchical social setup they live in. Almost 80% of participants reported that whenever they are in a situation of intense conflict with elders, they calmly submit themselves to their decision. Their momentary submission makes elders feel satisfied. As the situation becomes normal, they can negotiate their stand on the issue by reasonably modifying their demands to accommodate the perspective of the elders.

  4. 4.

    Miscellaneous function: Besides the above three functions there are some interesting functions assigned to obedience. Three out of thirty associated this value with the age-old notion of divinity. They argued that people who obey their parents get divine blessings, which protect them from all sorts of problems. One participant said that obedience has now become a way of flattering superiors to get various tangible and intangible rewards. Another participant argued that obedience is like a safety cover that protects oneself from the aftermath of a decision or action. So, if one wants to be free from the responsibility of what he/she has done one should remain under the commands of elders.

Table 1 Responses showing various functions of obedience
Full size table

3.3 Theme 3: Flexibility in obedience

The third issue was the flexibility young adults want while obeying parental commands. The response indicates that they are not willing to take strict commands from parents which require complete compliance. Rather they want autonomy of thought and action while making decisions. Three main reasons emerged from their responses for which, they wanted to modify parental commands. These are (i) Idealism vs. practicality, (ii) the notion of place, time, and person, and (iii) the moral judgment.

Idealism vs. practicality: Participants said that sometimes parents asked them to do what should ideally be done but they were more concerned with the practical concerns therefore they amended parental commands. Specific codes included statements like, (i) it is not practical to follow what they say all the time, (ii) elderly people talk of idealism but life can not be lived on ideals only, (iii) we want to obey parents but sometimes it is simply not possible.

The notion of time place and person: seem to firmly believe in this notion. Many participants argued that certain things may be appropriate for parents’ frame of time but not for ours. We are living in a different society and facing different challenges. Therefore, we need to behave differently to handle the situation. Specific codes here were (i) time has changed. Sometimes the elderly fail to understand our point, (ii) things change with time, we should also change, our mummy and papa were living in old time. (iii) Things which were correct that time may not be good for our time. We are living in a different world.

The Moral judgment: Responses showed a strong tendency to judge the appropriateness of every command against one’s moral codes. This was especially true when the person giving the command was not a part of the family. Commands have complied only if they qualify for the test of morality. Codes identified here were (i) everything should be judged for its moral appropriateness (ii) I and my parents may have different values. So we should also use our wisdom before we follow the commands.

3.4 Theme 4: Context of obedience

The fourth major research question was about the contexts in which young adults take parental commands as legitimate versus the contexts where freedom of choice must be given.

The first domain where participants willingly comply with commands includes two types of situations. One is the issues related to family pride and family traditions and the second is the issues of social/religious importance. Specific codes identified here were (i) one should obey elders on issues about religion and family tradition, (ii) mummy and papa have more experience than us. So, what they say about tradition and ethics must be complied with, (iii) one should not argue on topics related to family pride.

The second domain was relatively broad. It includes education, career, and marriage as the most frequently quoted subjects where parents were welcomed to present suitable options and describe their advantages and disadvantages but the young minds must be given freedom of choice. However, three participants believed that these issues must be left entirely to the choice of the individual. Response profiles have codes like (i) regarding studies one must ask parents before taking any decision, (ii) one must take suggestions from parents and other elderly members regarding important decisions like marriage and career, and (iii) elders are experienced. One must listen to them in important decisions of life like marriage, career, buying homes etc.

The third domain includes decisions related to lifestyle and friendship, and all those issues for which an individual finds himself/herself competent. Here parents’ involvement was perceived as interference until it had a sound reason behind it. Participants clearly said that (i) small things of routine life should be left to our discretion, (ii) why will mummy papa interfere in issues like making friends unless we do something wrong, (iii) I am grown up now and fully understand the boundaries set for me. Then parents should also trust me and not interfere in small things like choosing dresses and making friends.

4 Discussion

The study attempts to examine the transformation of obedience and strengthening of autonomy in Indian society in the context of autonomous related-self-theory [14, 15] against the modernization theory [19]. The modernization theory suggests that collectivistic values are gradually swamped over by individualistic values in the course of acculturation whereas the Kagitcibasi’s model of relational self (2005, 2011) states that collectivistic values are not always replaced by autonomy, and independence rather both can coexist and express themselves according to situational demands. These two propositions generated a trail of questions. For example, what ushers adolescents/ young adults towards independent decision-making instead of obeying their parents? When choices between obedience and autonomy are available how do adolescents choose one of them? This study attempts to answer these questions and test the relevance of the Autonomous-related-self theory in India.

4.1 The meaning and importance of obedience

Findings suggest that obedience continues to be an important value in the life of emerging adults. They state four distinct functions of obedience namely the knowledge function, self-enhancement function, harmonizing function, and miscellaneous function. The description of knowledge and self-enhancement function made it clear that young adults strongly identify with their parents, so they do with their decisions too. Therefore, executing their decisions doesn’t lower their sense of autonomy or intrinsic motivation. This goes well with the propositions of self-determination theory [4]. In collectivistic societies where interdependence is valued, making their own decisions may not be a valued goal for children [28]. The harmonizing function also shows a tendency to submit to parental command to keep the relationship smooth. This has a very practical significance in managing the hierarchical Indian society. Therefore, this practice prevails in immigrant Indian families also [17].

4.2 The flexibility aspect

The most prominent change observed was the sense of autonomy and freedom of choice mixed with the idea of complete submission to authority. Different reasons were proposed for modifying parental commands. Participants now realize that their socio-cultural milieu is different from that of their parents. Their priorities and challenges are different so they need to adopt a different strategy without getting culturally uprooted. Besides this, the age-appropriate urge to acquire autonomy, and to have an independent identity is also reflected in their responses. Their insistence on evaluating every command against the moral standards for its appropriateness and inappropriateness suggests that they have acquired a set of ethical and moral standards of their own. This signifies the presence of psychological autonomy along with behavioural autonomy.

4.3 The changing contexts of obedience

Except for a few issues related to family pride and family tradition, or issues of social and religious importance, all other things enjoyed a flexible status to varying degrees. Participants preferred to decide on the issues related to lifestyle, and friendship whereas education, marriage, and career were the things to be decided by the individuals under the supervision of parents. This means there are three zones ranging from the zone of complete obedience to complete autonomy with an intermediary zone where obedience and autonomy interact with each other to give birth to a new form of freedom of choice in which 'choices' are carefully selected and presented by the parents. This represents a guided autonomy model for Indian adolescents. This means that a scenario in which (1) the situation has a long-lasting, irreversible (at least seemingly) impact on the life of an individual and (2) the individual finds him/her incapable of handling the consequences of exercising one's wish over the command, would increase the probability of obedience. On the other hand (1) a situation with limited and reversible impact and (2) the individual capable enough to manage the consequence would increase the probability of autonomy. So, obedience in these situations is a matter of convenience, not an obligation. This decision is affected by many factors and changes over time and across situations. This gives rise to enormous intra- as well as inter-individual variations in the expression of obedience. Another important change is that the inarguable authority of the parents for issues like education, marriage, and career is now being replaced by an urge to have a say in the important decisions of life. This change can aptly be explained by the idea of the autonomous-relational-self-construal [11]. This notion balances the increased emphasis on freedom of choice and self-determination components of autonomy with relatedness components of collectivism.

5 Conclusion

To conclude, the autonomy model prevailing in India can be termed a guided autonomy model. One can discern the flavor of the age-old concept of obedience infused with western idea of autonomy here. This not only satisfies the urge for decision-making but also minimizes the risk of making inappropriate decisions. An indirect parental involvement, in the form of options parents present to adolescents, ensures their relatedness with the adolescents. This model suits well the changing socio-cultural milieu of this country as it allows the young generation to enjoy autonomy without getting socially or culturally uprooted.

5.1 Implications

The findings are important to minimize intergenerational conflicts, and enhance the quality of emotional bond parents-adolescents share. Besides this, it has great implications for various sectors dealing directly with adolescents and young adults. In non-western settings where collectivism is valued and nurturance and obedience are the established norms of social life, the older generation including parents, teachers, and employers sometimes fail to understand the autonomy needs of the young generation. Also handling these needs is a challenge for them. The elaborates that the increased autonomy demands are natural and the older generation should not get worried about it. Rather this can easily be managed by the proposed guided autonomy model. This model will also help the school counsellors and family counsellors/therapists in helping people trapped in intergenerational conflicts. They can guide parents and teachers about how to interact with adolescents/young adults so that the interaction remains both smooth and productive.

5.2 Limitation

The study can be done with a larger sample at different sites undergoing acculturation. The notion of autonomy can be elaborated further to understand value change better.